1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a cable harness arrangement, especially for connection of the individual components of a motor vehicle with a flexible printed circuit board (FPC) which has at least one flat printed conductor and at least one non-flat conductor.
2. Description of Related Art
In many technical devices, and especially in motor vehicle construction, a host of components must be interconnected via power supply and data lines, such as, for example, in a motor vehicle in which the individual electrical components, such as lights, instruments and electrical drives, must be connected to the vehicle""s electrical system and to suitable switching means.
To make the installation of the individual cables easier, several cables and connecting lines are combined into a cable harness in which the individual conductors have a length corresponding to their later installation position and are already provided with the corresponding connecting means. Basically there are two types of these cable harnesses. Specifically, on the one hand, there are those harnesses in which several individually insulated conductors are combined into a bundle and optionally jacketed, and on the other, there are flexible printed circuit boards (so-called FPC cable harnesses) in which several printed conductors are printed onto a flexible flat circuit board. Usually a cover layer is applied over the printed conductors so that they are integrated into the printed circuit board.
Since the type of conductor depends on the requirements of the components to be installed and, in many components, both cable harnesses made of strands and also cable harnesses with flexible printed circuit boards must be installed, and since not all conductors to be connected can be accommodated in one cable harness, i.e. either a FPC cable harness or cable harness with non-flat conductors such as stranded wires or coaxial cables, several cable harnesses must be installed individually and fixed. For example, when connecting a car radio, in which copper stranded cables are usually used for connection to a power supply, there is one coaxial cable for connection to an antenna and a data line which has a flexible printed circuit board for connection of the radio to, for example, a navigation system.
One object of the present invention is to provide a cable harness arrangement by which the connection and installation of components to be connected to conductors, especially of a motor vehicle, can be simplified.
The above object along with other objects are achieved by providing a cable harness arrangement, especially for connecting individual components of a motor vehicle to a flexible printed circuit board which has at least one flat printed circuit, and with at least one non-flat conductor. The non-flat conductor is at least partially fixed by the flexible printed circuit board, and preferably the non-flat conductor is embedded in the flexible printed circuit board. Since, in this way, only one common cable harness need be installed and fixed, separate holders for the non-flat conductors, e.g. coaxial cables, insulated metal wires, stranded metal conductor or optical fibers, can be abandoned thereby greatly reducing installation costs.
In particular, the non-flat conductors can be integrated into the flexible printed circuit board over only part of its length, and then the flexible printed circuit board can have lands for integration of the non-flat conductor and recesses between the connectors. One such embodiment of the cable harness arrangement of the present invention is advantageous in many respects. On the one hand, as a result of the recesses, the weight of the cable harness is reduced while at the same time the flexibility of the cable harness is increased. On the other hand, the lands, or the recesses located between the lands, can be used for fixing the cable harness, for example, on a motor vehicle body. Thus, for example, a cable harness provided with lands could be fixed on the vehicle using a cable connector which is threaded through the two recesses bordering one land.
In another embodiment of the invention, however, also at least one part of the surface areas of the flexible printed circuit board can be recessed between the lands in a manner forming flaps, which can be folded out of the plane of the circuit board, for fixing the cable harness arrangement. These flaps could be provided with openings, in the simplest case, in order to lock the cable harness securely on the motor vehicle by, for example, using clips which are inserted through the recesses and through a recess provided on the motor vehicle body.